- 3 Teens Wounded in Shooting Near D.C. Schools [Imagine Southeast PCS is mentioned]
- Three Teens Shot Outside D.C. Schools [Imagine Southeast PCS is mentioned]
- Families Left D.C. Over Last Decade in Search of Schools
3 Teens Wounded in Shooting Near D.C. Schools [Imagine Southeast PCS is mentioned]
The Washington Post
By Paul Duggan
January 12, 2012
Three young people were wounded, one critically, when gunfire broke out Thursday morning on a residential street near two schools in Southeast Washington, police said.
The incident occurred about 9:30 a.m. near Sixth Street and Alabama Avenue SE in the Congress Heights neighborhood, close to Ballou Senior High School and King Elementary School. Police spokeswoman Gwendolyn Crump did not name the victims but said they were all males ages 16 to 19.
The three apparently were together in the 600 block of Alabama when they were shot, police said. They said one of the wounded teens collapsed at the scene and was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
The other two ran away but were found in the area by police. Their wounds were described as not life-threatening.
Police said Thursday afternoon that “two people have been detained for questioning” in the case but that no charges had been filed.
The motive for the shooting remained unclear. Police are investigating whether there was an exchange of gunfire.
“Unfortunate that it would happen in front of a school,” Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said, standing near the crime scene. “Especially an elementary school, which is kind of the enraging part of the whole thing, regardless of what was behind somebody deciding to pull out a gun and shoot another person.”
Imagine Southeast Public Charter School in the 3100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and King Elementary in the 3200 block of Sixth Street were placed on lockdown after the shooting. Ballou was not.
Three Teens Shot Outside D.C. Schools [Imagine Southeast PCS is mentioned]
The Washington Times
By Andrea Noble
January 12, 2012
An explosion of gunfire outside two D.C. elementary schools Thursday morning left three teenagers hospitalized and sent parents scrambling to retrieve their children, who were locked down in the two Congress Heights facilities.
No arrests had been made as of Thursday evening, but Metropolitan Police Department officials said they were questioning two people captured after a chase and the recovery of a gun. Officials did not reveal the identities of the male victims or whether they were students at nearby Ballou High School, saying only that one was in critical condition and the other two had been shot in their lower bodies, but were listed in stable condition.
“It’s unfortunate that it would happen in front of a school, especially an elementary school, which is kind of the enraging part of this thing,” Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said at the scene of the shooting.
Police initially reported that the three shootings occurred separately, but later clarified that investigators think they happened in the 600 block of Alabama Avenue Southeast, in the District’s Ward 8.
About two hours after the 9:30 a.m. shooting, parents of students at the two elementary schools — Imagine Southeast Public Charter School and Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School — gathered anxiously behind a ribbon of police tape about a block away, waiting to retrieve their children.
Listing neighborhood problems that have involved Ballou students — including street fights and home break-ins — residents from the surrounding Congress Heights neighborhood said they were not surprised by the violence Thursday.
“It’s not a day goes by without a fight,” resident Patricia Smith said as she waited with relatives to pick up children from MLK Elementary, which was on lockdown after the shooting. “I’m scared to walk in my own neighborhood.”
Unlike when she was a student at Ballou, 23-year-old Kendra Hunter said, police and truancy officers have become more lackadaisical with enforcement of truancy laws. As a result, she said, students are regularly seen strolling through the neighborhood during school hours, some smoking marijuana or getting into trouble.
“Sometimes they do get picked up, but not as often as they used to,” Ms. Hunter said. “If truancy officers would have picked them up today, I guarantee this wouldn’t have happened.”
Though elected officials, including D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray and Ward 8 D.C. Council member Marion Barry, made a point to stop at the scene of the shootings, resident Tracy Johnson said officials need to do a better job of tackling the ward’s persistent crime.
“It always takes something drastic to bring them out, but they should be out here figuring out what to do to prevent this from happening,” she said, also referencing the 2010 South Capitol Street shootings that killed four and injured five. “When you see a ward that is being broken down like Ward 8, sometimes you need to put your priorities where it is really needed.”
The Washington Examiner
By Rachel Baye
January 12, 2012
Local families have been leaving the District before their children reach school age to avoid enrolling their children in troubled D.C. Public Schools, new census data reflects.
Families in the District have become younger in the last decade, with the number of households with children between ages 6 and 17 dropping 11 percent and the number with children under age 6 rising 9 percent, the data shows.
"I know a lot of people who made that decision [to leave]," said Chuck Thies, a local political consultant.
Thies and his wife recently faced that decision with their 6-year-old son. They sent the boy to H.D. Cooke Elementary School -- which, he said, has improved in recent years, thanks to school system reforms begun under former Chancellor Michelle Rhee. However, he said he would probably have moved out of the District had they been faced with the same decision before recent school reforms.
DCPS enrollment numbers also reflect this trend. Between 2001 and 2010, the school system's enrollment shrunk by 30.6 percent.
A spokeswoman for DCPS did not return requests for comment.
Even in high-performing school districts, the elementary schools tend to be stronger than the middle and high schools, said Terry Lynch, vice president of the School Without Walls Senior High School Parents Association. "Being a parent in the District through the middle-school years and the high-school years remains a significant challenge."
That's one reason why Capitol Hill resident Brian Robertson said he and his wife are considering Catholic school for their son, who is not yet 2. They haven't ruled out public school because the local elementary school has improved significantly in the six years they have lived there, but the local middle school has yet to see the same improvements, said Robertson.
"Clearly our families seem to be exiting our school system in the middle school grades," said D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown, emphasizing the need to reverse the trend.
The phenomenon is not unusual across urban areas, according to William Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution.
Though cities will show growth among families with young children, schools outside of the cities tend to be better suited for older children, Frey said.
School reforms have helped DCPS enrollment numbers begin to stabilize, but there is still work to be done, said Lynch.
"The reform efforts have been exceptional in terms of improving the physical attributes of the facilities," he said. "At the same time the academic performance remains haphazard between schools."
However, the faults of the school system are likely not the sole cause for the trend.
Often as families grow or as kids get older, families need more space, which can be both expensive and hard to find in the city, said Frey.
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